


Metamour

by Florchis



Series: Delta [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bi Daisy Johnson, Bi Jemma Simmons, Bisexual Female Character, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Poly Positivity, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-06 22:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10345575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: She sits down on her favourite armchair and lets Fitz and Simmons fuss over preparing some snacks, putting on some music, choosing a bottle of wine. It’s aesthetically pleasing to watch them, everything they do is in synch, like a dance, they always seem to know where the other is and they don’t even finish each other’s sentences, they finish each other’s thoughts.(She dodges her eyes when Fitz looks at her, though. It’s not because there is some kind of intensity on his gaze that makes her heart climb up to her mouth, because there is not, okay? There is not. It’s just because they have no business looking at each other. He is only her metamour, and nothing else. Nothing else. Like at all. No matter that she can still see a teeth mark she left on his neck, and she can still feel the ghost of his hands on her hips.)Or: After the party, they go to Simmons's place and Daisy deals with her conflicting feelings regarding Fitz.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In this verse, Jemma is dating both Daisy and Fitz and in this story they start a tentative relationship between them. You have been warned.

Jemma holds Fitz’s hands as soon as they leave the building, doing it almost on auto-pilot, because he is big in the hand-holding department, especially at night, and particularly when it’s cold. Daisy is quiet, very quiet, and she doesn’t like to be touched when she is in her own mind like this, and on the other hand Fitz could use a little bit of a reassurement, so Jemma figures that everything works out perfectly.

Well, it doesn’t.

Jemma is used to being in two relationships, and she relishes in all the benefits, and she has also dealt with all the little bumps in the road so far: hectic schedules, small outbursts of jealousy or possessiveness, bad timing, awkward questions, the judgement of mono-normative people, you name it. Being with both of them at the same time is not such a strange occurrence, but it’s thrilling to know that it’s only the three of them, and maybe things are about to change.

But Daisy’s mood is not getting lighter with the cold breezy kind of night she loves so much, and she can feel Fitz’s hand tense on hers. They exchange a quick glance, and he can’t relax, because he has noticed, too.

She has not actual experience on this kind of situations, but she has thought about this beforehand and has come prepared, because Jemma Simmons excels at preparation and doesn’t take makeshift measures. She just slows down her and Fitz’s pace until Daisy, unaware, catches up with them. She wants this to be an important gesture, to emphasise that she doesn’t want Daisy- or any of them, for that matter- to feel left out, but at the same time she doesn’t want to impose this on Daisy if she doesn’t want it, or she isn’t ready, or whatever it is she is feeling, so she doesn’t take Daisy’s hand with her free one.

They just walk side by side, making a straight line, and it’s a little uncomfortable to walk in some narrow spaces, but Jemma wouldn’t change it for anything. Fitz has started caressing the back of her hand with his thumb, and he has also started making small talk- not his strong point at all, but he is trying, and that’s everything Jemma can ask for, really.

Until Daisy interlaces her pinky with Jemma’s, and one should never think that things can not get better.

* * *

They go to Jemma’s apartment because it’s the closest one and because it is neutral territory, Daisy guesses. She is glad anyway, whatever the reasons are, because she can find a lot of comfort just looking around, remembering the first time she and Jemma had breakfast clad only on their underwear in that breakfast nook; looking at the couch and thinking of that movie night in which Jemma fell asleep on her and when she started drooling slightly on one of her favourite blouses, Daisy looked down at her, stroked her cheek and thought _Yeah, this one got me hard_.

She sits down on her favourite armchair and lets Fitz and Simmons fuss over preparing some snacks, putting on some music, choosing a bottle of wine. It’s aesthetically pleasing to watch them, everything they do is in synch, like a dance, they always seem to know where the other is and they don’t even finish each other’s sentences, they finish each other’s _thoughts_.

It should be a little terrifying, Daisy knows intellectually, especially after such an unsettling evening, but it is not. This is not what she looked for in a partner, but it is okay if it is what works for them. Her way of loving Jemma is different, they don’t need to be symbiotic to know they still love and want each other.

They are pleasurable to watch, still, Daisy decides. It could be nauseating, or jealousy-inducing, but it is not, and she is not going to question something that makes her life easier instead of harder. While she lets her cardiac rhythm settle down to a normal level, she almost forgets she allegedly hates Fitz. The boy looks at Simmons like she hung up the stars and the moon, and well, Daisy can’t even blame him, because #relatable, right?

(She dodges her eyes when Fitz looks at her, though. It’s not because there is some kind of intensity on his gaze that makes her heart climb up to her mouth, because there is not, okay? _There is not._ It’s just because they have no business looking at each other. He is only her metamour, and nothing else. Nothing else. Like _at all._ No matter that she can still see a teeth mark she left on his neck, and she can still feel the ghost of his hands on her hips.)

When Simmons offers her a glass of white wine, Daisy drinks it up to the last drop in two gulps, and her girlfriend raises a judgemental eyebrow.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” But she still gets up and puts her hands on Jemma’s neck and kisses her like there’s no tomorrow. Simmons gasps a little, surprised, but she gets on track fast, and Daisy feels a rush of relief, because she is not that out of sorts if Jemma’s kisses still make her tingle all the way down to her toes. They kiss probably more than what it’s appropriate with another person on the room, but Daisy doesn’t care, this isn’t about territory or power, this is about reminding herself of what she has and what she wants, and both things are Jemma.

She can’t help hearing Fitz in the back, making some kind of noises that are more astonished than uncomfortable, and somehow that spurs Daisy on. _Look. Look, Leopold, I might not be able to finish her sentences with four-syllables words, but I still have her, she is everything I need, you have no right in looking at me like that. No right at all. Stop, please stop. Stop._

(She is sure that if she ever says as much as a single word on that matter, he will stop. And it’s not like looking is a crime, in the first place. But she doesn’t say anything, and she is not sure how she would react if he acted like today nothing has changed between them.)

Jemma breaks the kiss and Daisy makes a noise of protest, and keeps holding her hand until Jemma is too far away and her arm can not stretch any longer. Jemma makes a face that is half a smile half a scolding, and goes to the bathroom already touching her lipstick-smeared chin that, fair enough, is a mess. Daisy refuses to look at anywhere but at the corridor she just dissapeared in, but she looks warily at Fitz when he offers her yet another glass of wine.

There is absolutely nothing menacing about him, there is even a slight blush on his face that goes down to his neck, and even though the hand that is holding the glass is trembling, his voice is not. Daisy can understand a little the appeal Jemma sees in him, with his honest blue eyes and his long fingers and his boyish enthusiasm.

She takes the glass without a word, and their fingers graze against each other, and she doesn’t feel an electric shock of any kind, but there is something in his soft smile that makes her want to kiss it off.

_What? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

Jemma comes out of the bathroom, her face clean of makeup and Daisy jumps a little, like she caught her doing something wrong. It’s uncomfortably obvious what is happening, but both Simmons and Fitz play it dumb, and it’s not a good look on either of them.     

“Do you want to watch something?”

“No. Let’s play something.”

“Why does everything always have to be a competition with you, Simmons? Three is like the worst possible number to play anything.” Someone had to say it, but both Fitz and Simmons shrug.

“We could play _Cheat_.”

“Simmons is awful at lying.” It’s not that she is trying to be uncooperative on purpose, but what it’s wrong with this people? Do they not notice this is awkward as hell? Do they not notice that she is fifteen seconds away from a mental breakdown?

“Okay, let’s play Charades, then. Whoever is acting chooses the movie and the other two try to guess. The one who guess faster, wins.”

“No. I’m not in the mood for acting, sorry. Or playing, for that matter.”

Fitz and Simmons exchange a quick glance, and that doesn’t bother Daisy, it doesn’t bother her the way they can understand each other without words, they way they know each other so well, the enormous amount of things they have shared in all the years of friendship. She is glad for that, she can be happy because Simmons is happy, she is just… overwhelmed.

“I’m sorry, guys, I’m not trying to be a party pooper. I just need a moment to regroup, okay?”

She takes an empty glass from over the table and flees to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

* * *

She focus on pouring two glasses of wine- white for Jemma, red for Fitz- and nothing else. She refuses to think about why or even how she knows that Fitz prefers red wine over white. It’s pointless, really. She just does.

 _You are making a fuss over nothing, Daisy Johnson. Your girlfriend has a boyfriend. You knew that. Your girlfriend has a boyfriend, and it just happens that you find him funny and a little endearing, and just today you discovered his hands are bigger than they seem and that he has an amazing trick he does with his tongue that you need to learn asap. Nothing else. No reason to panic whatsoever._                                

She grabs the countertop with much more force than necessary to hold herself, and takes a deep breath. She knows she is not being rational, but she also knows that denying and repressing what she is feeling won’t be healthy in the long run. The problem aren’t Fitz and Simmons, the problem isn’t Fitz, the problem aren’t per se the blossoming, tentative feelings he is awakening in her.

The problem is the mix of fear and excitement and the ball of pure, raw emotion that she can’t seem to swallow.

(She can’t decide if the fact that Simmons seems to know exactly what she is feeling, and her kind of implicit approval make everything better or worse.)

She is not sixteen anymore, and she knows she is not _in love_ with him, not when for the longest time she made a conscious effort to keep him at arm-length, but there is _potential_ there- it doesn’t even have to be potential for the love story of the century, maybe it can be potential for a nice friendship or just a good shag, she is not sure, but there are no reasons why she should let the possibility go to waste. Except for fear.         

It’s a simple deduction, really: she has been hurt before; she doesn’t want to be hurt again. She had a bunch of dangerous impulses and a dark period of time in her life after one too many failed relationships, but she doesn’t want to think about any of them ever again. It’s not that Jemma _fixed_ her, because that wouldn’t be fair to her or even to Jemma, it just happened that in the end Daisy picked herself up again and Jemma was there to learn with her that life can be still magnificent even while the sun is covered, even with tear-stained cheeks. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that crap.

It’s just a natural reaction, really. Men hurt her enough to kill the appeal. And, well, after meeting Jemma, Daisy never stumbled upon someone able to hold her attention for more than four minutes. Until Fitz.

Maybe that’s why she says she hates him: while she can be lukewarm indifferent and haughtily unattainable for men that are not her friends because it’s easy, every little thing she learns about him makes him more interesting; every single time she is a witness of how much he cares about Jemma makes him a more comforting presence; every smile that is a little too heart-accelerating to be normal makes him more attractive on her eyes. She has to disguise all that emotions with feigned hatred, because the truth is too much for her to handle.

 _Well, Daisy Johnson, aren’t you up to the elbows in a crappy situation._     

* * *

What Jemma loves most about being in two different relationships- besides the obvious fact that she doesn’t have to choose between them- is that she doesn’t have to settle for nothing. There are some things that she knows Fitz is better at, and some things she rather do with Daisy, and vice versa, and that’s okay.

She knows she is a demanding person and this way she doesn’t have to drain one partner to get everything she wants. She knows that any of them could make her 99% happy, and that’d be okay, but she is glad she doesn’t have to resent either of them for that 1% they wouldn’t be able to provide.

That feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction is what she wants for them. She knows they have the right to be happy with only her (maybe they can be one hundred percent happy with only her, though the idea is a little terrifying) and even if they want something else, it’s not her duty to find it for them. But Jemma loves them, and she wants the best for them, and she has a feeling that they can be right for each other. Above all else, she knows they _like_ each other, and they deserve to give that a try,

But Daisy has bad history with men, and she doesn’t want to trigger traumatic memories; and Fitz has a history of rejection and she doesn’t want to trigger his self-depreciating anxiety either. It was one thing to throw them together into a room during a boring party, where- if they wanted- they could bicker at each other for the entire seven minutes, or even ignore each other and play on their phones. But here, on her home, a space they both consider safe and sacred? She can’t violate their trust here. Here, she can only be a buffer if they want, and love them and cherish them and let the things run their natural course.

That’s why she lets Daisy go to the kitchen and stay there and she doesn’t go looking for her, because she doesn’t want to put any pressure on her. She stays in the living room and holds Fitz’s hand and assures him that everything is fine, that Daisy is strong and independent and that if she is uncomfortable, she will make herself heard, but at the same time she shoots Daisy a quick message.

_Are you okay? Want me to go there? You can go home, if you want. I won’t get mad. Love you._

**simmons i am having an existential crisis here**

_Don’t panic._

**trying not to . would you mind leaving us alone for a while ?**

_Of course not. I will send him your way, and I’ll make myself busy choosing a movie. Come back when you are done._

“Daisy wants to talk to you.”

“What?” His voice is high and breathy, betraying how nervous he really is, and Jemma aches for him.

“You don’t have to, you know. You can go home and I can have my life with her and my life with you and we will all act like this night never happened, you know that.” She hesitates a little, but keeps on going after all, because getting each other out of their comfort zones in order to be better and be happier is what they do. “But don’t flee just because you are afraid, because it means that you care about this.”

Fitz squeezes her hand, and Jemma squeezes back.

“I will talk to her, yeah? I mean, she can weight, what, one hundred and ten pounds? I could totally take her down.”

“She has thrown over her shoulder men twice _your_ size and _you know that_.”

“Jeez, way to be reassuring, Simmons.”

She smiles a little, because complaining is Fitz’s way of gaining momentum.

“Go get her, tiger.”

“More like, go get your ass handed back to you by my girlfriend. Tiger.”

She kisses him once, twice, and really, what did she do right to get this lucky?

“You say potato, I say potahto.”

* * *

 

Fitz tried to go in as tabula rasa as he could, to not have any expectations, but if he had made a list of possible outcomes, Daisy leaping to kiss him first hand would _not_ have been on that list.

There is a rush of warm feelings going through his body, adrenaline and surprise and arousal, all at once, and he really would like to keep on kissing her, but they need to talk first if they expect this to not get too out of control too fast.

“D-Daisy?” He is a little ashamed of his stuttering, mostly because he knows it’s probably not his injury acting up, but his nerves.

She’s trying to catch her breath, her eyes wide and glazy and Fitz doesn’t understand, because it was a nice kiss, sure, but probably not deserving of that.

“Daisy. That’s me.”

Has she knocked him over without him noticing, and now he is just hallucinating the whole thing? _Because nothing else makes sense._

“What-” And she cuts him off again with a kiss, and really, he should check if she is filming her for a prank, or something like that.

He lets her kiss him to her satisfaction this time, because if nothing is real, he doesn’t have to fight it. He puts his hands on her cheeks to hold her and kisses her with all the enthusiasm and the tenderness he can build up. He is not sure what this means, if he will have another chance like this, and he wants to make the most of it.

Daisy breaks the kiss this time, and Fitz can’t help chasing out her lips and she laughs against his mouth while he pecks her again and again. She still looks a little terrified, but much more amazed, and Fitz’s stomach makes a pleasant swoop.   

“Sorry about pouncing on you, I had to make sure there was _something_ to discuss here before making a big deal out of it.”

He has a very good feeling about this, so he is bold enough to stroke her cheek while looking her into the eye.

“And there is? Something to discuss, I mean.”

Daisy smiles, and it’s the earnest but cheeky smile Fitz has always enjoyed on her from afar.

“To quote the magnificent Jemma Simmons: _maybe there is.”_    

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @florchis on tumblr, let's come and chat!


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